Wow - really appreciate all the responses and fodder here guys. Realize I probably should have provided a little more context:
- My grandfather is survived by his wife so technically the estate is transferring over to her. She is liquidating his collection and I believe plans to distribute the funds to her children and grandchildren (of which I am one) but I have no idea about the equity intentions.
- I didn't really want to approach her with interest because I felt the worst case scenario was she'd offer to give me the item(s) which would likely be poorly received by the rest of the family. Under a best case scenario I could have agreed to a market value but even then I'm not sure how all involved would have felt. I also didn't really want to broadcast my personal finances since my family's situations are pretty disparate right now.
The general consensus I'm getting is its probably okay to be bidding on these items without guilt, and I may or may not need to tell the auction house depending on their rules.
Finally - thank you for the condolences....we all lost a helluvah man but at 91 it was a great run and I appreciate the ample time I had with him.